AMN Reviews: Michael Jon Fink – From a Folio (Cold Blue Music)

Derek Stein´s cello certainly seems to beseech “woe is me” in the opening “Invocation” of From a Folio, Michael Jon Fink´s short but pregnant suite. Consisting of six pieces for piano and cello and one for six cellos, it is another of Cold Blue Music´s CD singles for brief, essential new listens. Though leading with such a lament, the rest of the folio unfolds like cozy but serious conversation between a couple, perhaps old, perhaps young, on a rainy afternoon. Each of the duo´s notes are spare but eloquently interplayed. Kitchen talk, no earth-shattering issues, no bottled up emotions uncorked or repressed secrets aired. Just the profundity of lives spent in equanimity, with a teapot and a lot of warmth in between.